Italy’s Native Grapes – by far the largest number in the World

Italian Wine Nerds, here’s a great book recommendation

I’m on to Ian D’Agata and his masterpiece “Native Wine Grapes of Italy”. The summa of 30 years spent in the world of wine and 13 years of research has left him counting more than 500 native examples (latest count by Robinson, for instance, were 377) and let me already now quote Ian for the glory of native Italian Grapes and wine making : “Italy has by far the largest number of grape varieties from which to make wine. Even more than the blessing of ideal microclimates and geologically diverse soils, this rich biodiversity is the single greatest winemaking asset Italian producers share”. There we are! Another important fact when writing and reading about wine is of course to remember that latest news become old very fast due to the rapid changes and new discoveries occurring in the wine business all the time. In the preface Ian writes this about his own book: “In some respects this book, once published, will already be old. However, it represents by far the most thouroughly researched, in-depth, and accurate book on Italy’s native grapes and wines available today”. Amen